Exponential communication separations between notions of selfishness

Aviad Rubinstein, Raghuvansh R. Saxena, Clayton Thomas, S. Matthew Weinberg, Junyao Zhao

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceedingConference contribution

4 Scopus citations

Abstract

We consider the problem of implementing a fixed social choice function between multiple players (which takes as input a type ti from each player i and outputs an outcome f(t1,..., tn)), in which each player must be incentivized to follow the protocol. In particular, we study the communication requirements of a protocol which: (a) implements f, (b) implements f and computes payments that make it ex-post incentive compatible (EPIC) to follow the protocol, and (c) implements f and computes payments in a way that makes it dominant-strategy incentive compatible (DSIC) to follow the protocol. We show exponential separations between all three of these quantities, already for just two players. That is, we first construct an f such that f can be implemented in communication c, but any EPIC implementation of f (with any choice of payments) requires communication exp(c). This answers an open question of [Fadel and Segal, 2009; Babaioff et. al., 2013]. Second, we construct an f such that an EPIC protocol implements f with communication C, but all DSIC implementations of f require communication exp(C).

Original languageEnglish (US)
Title of host publicationSTOC 2021 - Proceedings of the 53rd Annual ACM SIGACT Symposium on Theory of Computing
EditorsSamir Khuller, Virginia Vassilevska Williams
PublisherAssociation for Computing Machinery
Pages947-960
Number of pages14
ISBN (Electronic)9781450380539
DOIs
StatePublished - Jun 15 2021
Event53rd Annual ACM SIGACT Symposium on Theory of Computing, STOC 2021 - Virtual, Online, Italy
Duration: Jun 21 2021Jun 25 2021

Publication series

NameProceedings of the Annual ACM Symposium on Theory of Computing
ISSN (Print)0737-8017

Conference

Conference53rd Annual ACM SIGACT Symposium on Theory of Computing, STOC 2021
Country/TerritoryItaly
CityVirtual, Online
Period6/21/216/25/21

All Science Journal Classification (ASJC) codes

  • Software

Keywords

  • Algorithmic mechanism design
  • Communication complexity
  • Implementation theory

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